Art Work of York, Harrisburg and Lancaster, Published in Nine Parts

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

http://www.archive.org/details/artworkofyorkhar03grav

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TEMPLE SHAARAI SHOMAYIM.— Lancaster.

FIRST M. E. CHURCH.— Lancaster.

In the foregoing we have tried to convey a general idea of the growth and development of
the districts about the cities of Lancaster, York and Harrisburg, with some few interesting facts
before taking up the salient features of the growth of the cities in detail. We cannot help
adding just a few more words which will apply to other towns and cities besides those mentioned
in this limited article. We of today should never rest from being thankful to the men and
women of the settlement days of our countr}', for their strong and enduring fight against the
dark forest, the Indians, the wild animals and poisonous reptiles. We should constantly
f,Hiard against being a nation prone to accept things as they are, and earnestly strive to remember
what struggles, hardships, privations and work had to be gone through with to enable us to
enjoy our manifest blessings of civilization in a free and enlightened nation. We should not
like to believe that our children's children's children will forget the many betterments and
improvements we ourselves have made for the furtherance of civilization and creature comforts,
yet if we forget the lessons taught us in the building up of our nation in the past, why should not
they? There is much which is interesting, much to be learned in the books and archives
dealing with the history of our earl}- days, even if we, in our comfortable homes, are only
shallow enough to snuggle more closely in our easy chairs under our softly shaded lights and
remark lazily; "I'm glad I did not live in days like those."

The original site of Lancaster appears to have been honored with three names: Gibsons
Pasture, Gibson's Tavern and Hickory Town. By whatever name it went, the location of the
place as the county seat of the vast territory, later on to become so famous, was unquestionably
most suitable and desirable.

We can imagine the little hamlet tucked away in the woods, no road back to civilization
but a bridle path, surrounded almost by Indian villages. And yet peacefully and quietly going
about the business of building up equality and justice where neither had ever existed.

Between Lancaster and the river was a large Indian settlement called Conestogoe.
The Susquehannach tribe had a fortified stockade at the foot of Turkey Hill, about midway
between Witmer's Mill and Strickler's Run; while numerous independent wigwams were
scattered about. Yet all through their existence the white settlers of that district protected
and fostered the red man. Of course the class of settlers about the county seat had much to
do with this, being for the most part Germans, English Quakers, Baptists, and Swiss
Mennonites, who were against war of any kind, and who only asked to be let alone to clear and
till their lands. The Scotch-Irish, on the other hand, did not mind a little turmoil now and
then. In fact it seemed to clear their blood, making them feel better. And these we find
pushing further on and taking up places on the danger line, forever expanding the area of the
new province. They seemed to have always left enough of their people in Lancaster to run
the legal business of the county.

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